Energy storage PCS shipments reached 3GW in 2018, and competition in the energy storage inverter market accelerated

In October 2018, IHS Markit released the "Energy Storage Inverter (PCS) Report 2018", publishing some of IHS's views and predictions on such a rapidly developing industry.

The report points out that Germany's SMA ranked first in terms of shipments in 2017, with a scale of about 400MW, nearly 200MW higher than the second-placed DestinPower of South Korea. The companies ranked third to fifth are Germany's WSTech, the United States' Tesla and GE. In addition, only one Chinese company made the Top 10 list, which is Sungrow Power Supply Co., Ltd. ranked sixth.

IHS predicts that in 2018, the shipment volume of energy storage PCS will increase by more than 50% to 3GW, with revenue approaching $400 million. Currently, South Korea has a 25% market share, while the United States and China have market shares of 14% and 13%, respectively. In addition, the shipment volume of grid-connected energy storage inverters will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 25%, and by 2022, the scale will increase to 7GW, with revenue reaching approximately $600 million.

In terms of application distribution, the grid side accounts for the largest proportion, followed by the commercial user side and the residential side. The biggest driving factor for the former comes from renewable energy certificates, which promote the development of renewable energy equipped with energy storage, while the biggest driving factor for the user side, especially in the industrial and commercial fields, comes from saving high demand electricity charges. In addition, policies for zero-energy buildings and facilities have also encouraged the application of energy storage to a certain extent.

In the future, the average rated power of PCS applied to the grid side will become larger and larger globally, exceeding 1MW, and more DC-coupled or hybrid energy storage inverters will be more widely used in residential photovoltaic storage applications.

Overall, competition in the energy storage inverter space remains “very volatile” due to the wide geographic distribution of energy storage installations, the increasing number of new suppliers entering the market, and the continued increase in mergers, acquisitions and exits. For example, Dynapower, a leading company in other fields, is working with specialized energy storage inverter companies SMA and Raychem to help it sell DC-coupled inverters in global markets such as the United States and India.